Gods and Godmen of India Read Free Page A

fecundation. In case, the odour fails to attract, the flower also has a different colour and produces honey. That is, it tries every device to get itself fertilized. What beautiful patterns and variegated hues in the flowers! Flowers that remain unfertilized continue to emit a strong fragrance for as long as eight days: whereas once impregnated, the flower ceases to exude its fragrance.
    “After fertilization, the flower ceases to exist. It drops off and in its place appears the green stage of the fruit. When the seed which contains the immortality of the plant is ready for propagation, the fruit which contains it undergoes a remarkable change. It changes colour, it emits a scent, and it has an inviting taste so that any of these qualities may attract a bird or beast to come to the fruit, pick it and eat it. The seed is enclosed in a hard shell and is often unpleasant to taste, so the eater of the fruit drops it. Down comes the rain, and from the seed comes a replica of the plant. The huge banyan tree is contained in a seed which can be packed thousands to an ounce. The blueprint is there in the tiny seed. And given the right conditions, the banyan has reproduced itself.
    “Am I to understand that a plant that has neither brain nor a nervous system thought up or evolved this intricate system of propagating itself? No. Even a Nobel prize winning scientist cannot produce a leaf or a blade of grass in his laboratory. It is not the plant as we see it that is producing this marvel. A power beyond our comprehension is manifesting itself through the plant, through the bee that pollinates its flower, through the bird that eats the fruit and disperses the seed and as I the observer, who is overwhelmed at the sudden unexpected insight into the mystery of life.”
    Agnostics will go along with Mahadevan upto this point. But no further. When he takes what he calls “the quantam leap beyond rationality” we prefer to stay back on firmer ground. Why should a thinking human being abandon the one thing that differentiates him from the animal world – his faculty of reasoning? Mahadevan quotes St Augustine:
    “My mind in a swift flash of perception attained the Absolute Being, the Ultimate and One Reality. All that is. Then verily I saw and understood. I could not sustain the sight of Infinity and Eternal Reality. It was a glimpse, transcient, a second’s space.”
    I agree with Mahadevan that reason and logic have their limitations and are unable to probe into the ultimate mystery of our existence. The Taittiriya Upanishad affirms that it is beyond the reach of speech and thought: Yato vacho nivartante: sprapya manasa saha. (From where speech returns: even the mind (thoughts) without reaching it.
    We end up being where we were. Believers would have us fly across to God on the magic carpet of faith. We agnostics would like a solid, concrete bridge of reason to cross over from the known to the unknown. Till then their religion for them, our doubts to us.
    3/9/89

Fad is Vastu
    N o people in the world are more receptive towards irrational beliefs than we Indians. We already have astrology, horoscopy, palmistry, Rahu Kalams and ‘miracles’ like Ganapati drinking milk, godmen and godwomen producing vibhuti, wrist watches and figurines out of thin air; to add to the list we now have a revival of Vastu, alleged to be the ancient Science of Architecture. It lays down rules about the direction the entrance gate should face, where the kitchen should be located and whether the lavatory should be in the rear or front. You can see and hear smartly dressed young men and women extolling the ‘scientific’ basis of Vastu on TV channels as a sacred shastra.
    Take it from me it is hundred per cent rubbish and sooner our media stop off-loading this nonsense on a gullible people, the better. We can’t do it because far too many people in high places believe in them: Presidents, prime ministers, chief ministers, judges of the Supreme Court, and most